Yes, I'm opening that can of worms. Sort of.
I know a lot of people despise Twilight -- absolutely despise it. I know a lot of people love Twilight, as in, absolutely freaking adore it. I'm in the middle. There are a lot of things that I really don't like about those books. I don't like the way creeper-ness has become synonymous with love ("I like to watch you sleep, every night, by climbing in your window without telling you" is NOT romantic. "You're cute when you're asleep" might be, but the creeper one is not, nor will it ever be) because of Edward Cullen. I don't like the implication that you can never find true happiness without a romantic partner. I really, really hate the idea that it is in any way okay for a boy to tell a girl that she is his only reason for living and that without her, he would kill himself.
BUT...there are also good things about it, primarily this: even though the writing isn't always perfect and there are certain messages that I object to, I can read the books and enjoy them for what they are -- simple, fun stories that are meant to take us away from the realities of day-to-day life for a couple of hours. And in my book (pun intended), anything that can inspire so many teenagers to read is a good thing.
I think it's fine to be a Twilight fan. For a long time, I was a big fan -- and then some stuff happened in my personal life that rather shifted my perspective on a lot of it. Now...I'm sort of in between, I guess. But I don't mind Twilight as a series or a franchise or whatever. No, my two big problems with Twilight have nothing to do with the actual Twilight books:
1. "The next Twilight" is a phrase that I am absolutely sick of hearing. Next time there's a series as popular as Twilight,we'll know it for what is is. Then it'll be "the new XYZ Series," etc. Great books stand on their own. I'm sick of comparing them to Twilight. (This also holds true for Harry Potter, and anyone who's spent five minutes around me in real life will know that I'm a total Harry Potter nerd. This isn't anti-Twilight so much as anti-comparison, but Twilight is the one we hear all the time now.)
2. Twilight copycats. They remade the covers of Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice and Romeo and Juliet to look more like the Twilight covers! (I blogged about that a long time ago, actually.) That did not make me happy. And I'm not happy with what vampires have become in the YA Lit world. I like vampires. I don't know why we decided that they should all sparkle just because the Cullens did. I miss evil vampires. But the other thing is that I don't like the automatic associations of everything to Twilight -- "oh, it has vampires AND werewolves in it, and there's a vampire named Victoria and a character named Riley? It's totally a Twilight knockoff." No, no it's not. Unraveled may have taken me a while to get into, but it was still a good book and it was nothing like Twilight. The world is not divided into Twilight-knockoffs and books with no vampires, werewolves, Victorias, Rileys, Edwards, Bellas, Alices, creepers, or anything else that ever appeared in Twilight.
And that got a little bit rantier than I meant for it to. My sincerest apologies. But now that I've said all that... where do you guys fall on this issue?
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Series vs. Standalones
Several times recently, I've had the same conversation with one of my friends: which is better, series books or standalone novels?
It's not exactly a debate, because I haven't picked a side. I think both sides have their pros and cons, and I don't think there is a right answer - there are standalone books that I like better than some series, and there are series that I prefer to any sort of standalone. I think which option is "better" depends on the individual book.
Harry Potter is one of my favorite book series of all times, and those seven books are some of my absolute favorites. That absolutely would not have worked as a standalone. It needed to have all seven books, all the many thousands of pages. Other examples: Percy Jackson, the Mortal Instruments, Series of Unfortunate Events... the list goes on.
I love series books. I tend to get really attached to characters, and I love that I get more than one book to get to know the characters and the world and to experience their story. But if the story arc peters out after book two and the only reason the series continues is to make money, then -- NO! Leave it! This is what I think happens too much with movies, but it applies just as much to books. Shrek, for example - I thought it was a great movie: cute, funny, just fun to watch. But the rest of the Shrek films? No, they were just there to make money. The second one was still pretty good, but the third one? Meh. And the fourth one? I wouldn't even watch it. It happens to books, too. If it's only got a story for one book, leave it that way!
Of course, there are exceptions. To use a kiddie example, the Boxcar Children: each book told its own story, its own mystery, but the characters were the same. Magic Tree House was that way too. Actually, now I think about it, most kids' series are... hm. Better example: Redwall. I personally haven't read all of them, but my brother has (multiple times). There are something like twenty Redwall books out now, and that's okay - each one does tell its own story, it's not one story arc spread way too thin or adding sequels just to make money.
I have no objection to series. Generally speaking, I love them. I just think that creating a series for the sake of creating a series usually means that the quality of the writing is not as good as it could be.
But of course, I also love standalone novels. Paper Towns and An Abundance of Katherines, both by John Green, are right up there on my very-favoritest-books list -- and they're both standalone novels. People constantly ask John whether there will be sequels for his books, and despite my love for those characters and those worlds, I'm glad the answer is no. Those books don't need sequels. Their stories are complete. And if it's not clear what happens to the characters afterwards, well, that's okay -- it's good to leave some things to the reader's imagination. The same is true of all of the books I've read by Sarah Dessen and Deb Caletti and Laurie Halse Anderson; it's true of Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why; it's true of many books.
The way I see it, series vs. standalone only has a right answer in relation to an individual book or series. But that's my opinion. What do you think?
It's not exactly a debate, because I haven't picked a side. I think both sides have their pros and cons, and I don't think there is a right answer - there are standalone books that I like better than some series, and there are series that I prefer to any sort of standalone. I think which option is "better" depends on the individual book.
Harry Potter is one of my favorite book series of all times, and those seven books are some of my absolute favorites. That absolutely would not have worked as a standalone. It needed to have all seven books, all the many thousands of pages. Other examples: Percy Jackson, the Mortal Instruments, Series of Unfortunate Events... the list goes on.
I love series books. I tend to get really attached to characters, and I love that I get more than one book to get to know the characters and the world and to experience their story. But if the story arc peters out after book two and the only reason the series continues is to make money, then -- NO! Leave it! This is what I think happens too much with movies, but it applies just as much to books. Shrek, for example - I thought it was a great movie: cute, funny, just fun to watch. But the rest of the Shrek films? No, they were just there to make money. The second one was still pretty good, but the third one? Meh. And the fourth one? I wouldn't even watch it. It happens to books, too. If it's only got a story for one book, leave it that way!
Of course, there are exceptions. To use a kiddie example, the Boxcar Children: each book told its own story, its own mystery, but the characters were the same. Magic Tree House was that way too. Actually, now I think about it, most kids' series are... hm. Better example: Redwall. I personally haven't read all of them, but my brother has (multiple times). There are something like twenty Redwall books out now, and that's okay - each one does tell its own story, it's not one story arc spread way too thin or adding sequels just to make money.
I have no objection to series. Generally speaking, I love them. I just think that creating a series for the sake of creating a series usually means that the quality of the writing is not as good as it could be.
But of course, I also love standalone novels. Paper Towns and An Abundance of Katherines, both by John Green, are right up there on my very-favoritest-books list -- and they're both standalone novels. People constantly ask John whether there will be sequels for his books, and despite my love for those characters and those worlds, I'm glad the answer is no. Those books don't need sequels. Their stories are complete. And if it's not clear what happens to the characters afterwards, well, that's okay -- it's good to leave some things to the reader's imagination. The same is true of all of the books I've read by Sarah Dessen and Deb Caletti and Laurie Halse Anderson; it's true of Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why; it's true of many books.
The way I see it, series vs. standalone only has a right answer in relation to an individual book or series. But that's my opinion. What do you think?
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